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UGA makes list in 'Best Colleges'

Posted: Friday, August 18, 2006

Make that eight in a row for the University of Georgia.

In the 2007 edition of U.S. News & World Report's "Best Colleges" guide, the school ranks 21st among public universities - the eighth year in a row the school has ranked somewhere between No. 18 and No. 22. Of the 124 public and private institutions that U.S. News & World Report ranked, UGA comes in at No. 60.

"We're traveling in an impressive peer group of top institutions and are most pleased to be included among the nation's top public universities again this year," UGA President Michael Adams said in a Thursday news release.

UGA also ranked 45th out of 50 colleges in the "Great Schools, Great Prices" list. Of the eight public colleges on the list, UGA ranked seventh.

UGA continues to fall on the great prices list. In 2002, UGA ranked No. 21 nationally on the list, while it clocked in at No. 41 last year. "You want to be a bargain, but you don't want to be cheap. That's too much of a bargain," UGA spokesman Tom Jackson said, quoting Adams. "That's a list you don't want to be at the very top of. It probably indicates you're underpriced."

In a survey of 400 accredited business schools, UGA's Terry College of Business is tied at 29th. The college ranked 18th among undergraduate programs at public business schools.

Terry College's risk management and insurance program took No. 2, up one spot from last year. Similarly, the real estate program climbed a spot, and is now in a tie for second with the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

In evaluating schools, U.S. News & World Report considers several factors, including graduation rates, academic reputation, student retention, class sizes and alumni giving rate, UGA said in a news release.

New rankings

The 2007 rankings are available online at www.usnews.com. They also will be published in the magazine's Aug. 28 edition, which hits newsstands Monday, along with the newsstand book America's Best Colleges.